LUCENTIO
I fly, Biondello: but they may chance to need thee
at home; therefore leave us.

BIONDELLO
Nay, faith, I’ll see the church o’ your back; and
then come back to my master’s as soon as I can.

Exeunt LUCENTIO, BIANCA, and BIONDELLO

GREMIO
I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.

Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, VINCENTIO, GRUMIO, with Attendants

PETRUCHIO
Sir, here’s the door, this is Lucentio’s house:
My father’s bears more toward the market-place;
Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.

VINCENTIO
You shall not choose but drink before you go:
I think I shall command your welcome here,
And, by all likelihood, some cheer is toward.

Knocks

GREMIO
They’re busy within; you were best knock louder.

Pedant looks out of the window

Pedant
What’s he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?

VINCENTIO
Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?

Pedant
He’s within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.

VINCENTIO
What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two, to
make merry withal?

Pedant
Keep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall
need none, so long as I live.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua.
Do you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances,
I pray you, tell Signior Lucentio that his father is
come from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with him.

Pedant
Thou liest: his father is come from Padua and here
looking out at the window.

VINCENTIO
Art thou his father?

Pedant
Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.

PETRUCHIO
[To VINCENTIO] Why, how now, gentleman! why, this
is flat knavery, to take upon you another man’s name.

Pedant
Lay hands on the villain: I believe a’ means to
cozen somebody in this city under my countenance.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

BIONDELLO
I have seen them in the church together: God send
’em good shipping! But who is here? mine old
master Vincentio! now we are undone and brought to nothing.

VINCENTIO
[Seeing BIONDELLO]
Come hither, crack-hemp.

BIONDELLO
Hope I may choose, sir.

VINCENTIO
Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?

BIONDELLO
Forgot you! no, sir: I could not forget you, for I
never saw you before in all my life.

BIONDELLO
What, my old worshipful old master? yes, marry, sir:
see where he looks out of the window.

VINCENTIO
Is’t so, indeed.

Beats BIONDELLO

BIONDELLO
Help, help, help! here’s a madman will murder me.

Exit

Pedant
Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!

Exit from above

PETRUCHIO
Prithee, Kate, let’s stand aside and see the end of
this controversy.

They retire

Re-enter Pedant below; TRANIO, BAPTISTA, and Servants

TRANIO
Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?

VINCENTIO
What am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal
gods! O fine villain! A silken doublet! a velvet
hose! a scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat! O, I
am undone! I am undone! while I play the good
husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at
the university.

TRANIO
How now! what’s the matter?

BAPTISTA
What, is the man lunatic?

TRANIO
Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your
habit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir,
what ‘cerns it you if I wear pearl and gold? I
thank my good father, I am able to maintain it.

VINCENTIO
Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.

BAPTISTA
You mistake, sir, you mistake, sir. Pray, what do
you think is his name?

VINCENTIO
His name! as if I knew not his name: I have brought
him up ever since he was three years old, and his
name is Tranio.

Pedant
Away, away, mad ass! his name is Lucentio and he is
mine only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.

BIONDELLO
O! we are spoiled and–yonder he is: deny him,
forswear him, or else we are all undone.

LUCENTIO
[Kneeling] Pardon, sweet father.

VINCENTIO
Lives my sweet son?

Exeunt BIONDELLO, TRANIO, and Pedant, as fast as may be

BIANCA
Pardon, dear father.

BAPTISTA
How hast thou offended?
Where is Lucentio?

LUCENTIO
Here’s Lucentio,
Right son to the right Vincentio;
That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,
While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.

GREMIO
Here’s packing, with a witness to deceive us all!

VINCENTIO
Where is that damned villain Tranio,
That faced and braved me in this matter so?

BAPTISTA
Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?

BIANCA
Cambio is changed into Lucentio.

LUCENTIO
Love wrought these miracles. Bianca’s love
Made me exchange my state with Tranio,
While he did bear my countenance in the town;
And happily I have arrived at the last
Unto the wished haven of my bliss.
What Tranio did, myself enforced him to;
Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.

VINCENTIO
I’ll slit the villain’s nose, that would have sent
me to the gaol.

BAPTISTA
But do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter
without asking my good will?

VINCENTIO
Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but
I will in, to be revenged for this villany.

Exit

BAPTISTA
And I, to sound the depth of this knavery.

Exit

LUCENTIO
Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.

Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA

GREMIO
My cake is dough; but I’ll in among the rest,
Out of hope of all, but my share of the feast.

Exit

KATHARINA
Husband, let’s follow, to see the end of this ado.

PETRUCHIO
First kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATHARINA
What, in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIO
What, art thou ashamed of me?

KATHARINA
No, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.

PETRUCHIO
Why, then let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away.

KATHARINA
Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.

PETRUCHIO
Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:
Better once than never, for never too late.

Exeunt

SCENE II. Padua. LUCENTIO’S house.

Enter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the Pedant, LUCENTIO, BIANCA, PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Widow, TRANIO, BIONDELLO, and GRUMIO the Serving-men with Tranio bringing in a banquet
LUCENTIO
At last, though long, our jarring notes agree:
And time it is, when raging war is done,
To smile at scapes and perils overblown.
My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,
While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.
Brother Petruchio, sister Katharina,
And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
Feast with the best, and welcome to my house:
My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;
For now we sit to chat as well as eat.

PETRUCHIO
Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!

BAPTISTA
Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

PETRUCHIO
Padua affords nothing but what is kind.

HORTENSIO
For both our sakes, I would that word were true.

PETRUCHIO
Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.

Widow
Then never trust me, if I be afeard.

PETRUCHIO
You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:
I mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.

Widow
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

PETRUCHIO
Roundly replied.

KATHARINA
Mistress, how mean you that?

Widow
Thus I conceive by him.

PETRUCHIO
Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?

HORTENSIO
My widow says, thus she conceives her tale.

PETRUCHIO
Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.

KATHARINA
‘He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:’
I pray you, tell me what you meant by that.

Widow
Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,
Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe:
And now you know my meaning,

KATHARINA
A very mean meaning.

Widow
Right, I mean you.

KATHARINA
And I am mean indeed, respecting you.

PETRUCHIO
To her, Kate!

HORTENSIO
To her, widow!

PETRUCHIO
A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.

HORTENSIO
That’s my office.

PETRUCHIO
Spoke like an officer; ha’ to thee, lad!

Drinks to HORTENSIO

BAPTISTA
How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

GREMIO
Believe me, sir, they butt together well.

BIANCA
Head, and butt! an hasty-witted body
Would say your head and butt were head and horn.

VINCENTIO
Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken’d you?

BIANCA
Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I’ll sleep again.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, that you shall not: since you have begun,
Have at you for a bitter jest or two!

BIANCA
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;
And then pursue me as you draw your bow.
You are welcome all.

Exeunt BIANCA, KATHARINA, and Widow

PETRUCHIO
She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio.
This bird you aim’d at, though you hit her not;
Therefore a health to all that shot and miss’d.

TRANIO
O, sir, Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself and catches for his master.

PETRUCHIO
A good swift simile, but something currish.

TRANIO
‘Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
‘Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTA
O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.

LUCENTIO
I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.

HORTENSIO
Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCHIO
A’ has a little gall’d me, I confess;
And, as the jest did glance away from me,
‘Tis ten to one it maim’d you two outright.

BAPTISTA
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

PETRUCHIO
Well, I say no: and therefore for assurance
Let’s each one send unto his wife;
And he whose wife is most obedient
To come at first when he doth send for her,
Shall win the wager which we will propose.

HORTENSIO
Content. What is the wager?

LUCENTIO
Twenty crowns.

PETRUCHIO
Twenty crowns!
I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIO
A hundred then.

HORTENSIO
Content.

PETRUCHIO
A match! ’tis done.

HORTENSIO
Who shall begin?

LUCENTIO
That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLO
I go.

Exit

BAPTISTA
Son, I’ll be your half, Bianca comes.

LUCENTIO
I’ll have no halves; I’ll bear it all myself.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

How now! what news?

BIONDELLO
Sir, my mistress sends you word
That she is busy and she cannot come.

PETRUCHIO
How! she is busy and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?

GREMIO
Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

HORTENSIO
I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

Now, where’s my wife?

BIONDELLO
She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come: she bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIO
Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endured!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;
Say, I command her to come to me.

Exit GRUMIO

HORTENSIO
I know her answer.

PETRUCHIO
What?

HORTENSIO
She will not.

PETRUCHIO
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

BAPTISTA
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!

Re-enter KATARINA

KATHARINA
What is your will, sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIO
Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?

KATHARINA
They sit conferring by the parlor fire.

PETRUCHIO
Go fetch them hither: if they deny to come.
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

Exit KATHARINA

LUCENTIO
Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIO
And so it is: I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,
And awful rule and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not, that’s sweet and happy?

BAPTISTA
Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is changed, as she had never been.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, I will win my wager better yet
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.
See where she comes and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.

Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow

Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot.

Widow
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

BIANCA
Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO
I would your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.

BIANCA
The more fool you, for laying on my duty.

PETRUCHIO
Katharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

Widow
Come, come, you’re mocking: we will have no telling.

PETRUCHIO
Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

Widow
She shall not.

PETRUCHIO
I say she shall: and first begin with her.

KATHARINA
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

PETRUCHIO
Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

LUCENTIO
Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha’t.

VINCENTIO
‘Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

LUCENTIO
But a harsh hearing when women are froward.

PETRUCHIO
Come, Kate, we’ll to bed.
We three are married, but you two are sped.

To LUCENTIO

‘Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;
And, being a winner, God give you good night!

The Taming of the Shrew, ACT II
SCENE I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

Katharina, Baptista and Bianca (Act 2, scene 1)

Enter KATHARINA and BIANCA

BIANCA
Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;
That I disdain: but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I’ll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.

BIANCA
Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.

KATHARINA
Minion, thou liest. Is’t not Hortensio?

BIANCA
If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I’ll plead for you myself, but you shall have
him.

KATHARINA
O then, belike, you fancy riches more:
You will have Gremio to keep you fair.

BIANCA
Is it for him you do envy me so?
Nay then you jest, and now I well perceive
You have but jested with me all this while:
I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.

KATHARINA
If that be jest, then all the rest was so.

Strikes her

Enter BAPTISTA

BAPTISTA
Why, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence?
Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.
Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.
For shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit,
Why dost thou wrong her that did ne’er wrong thee?
When did she cross thee with a bitter word?

KATHARINA
Her silence flouts me, and I’ll be revenged.

Flies after BIANCA

BAPTISTA
What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.

Exit BIANCA

KATHARINA
What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
She is your treasure, she must have a husband;
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding day
And for your love to her lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep
Till I can find occasion of revenge.

Exit

BAPTISTA
Was ever gentleman thus grieved as I?
But who comes here?

Enter GREMIO, LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man; PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO, with BIONDELLO bearing a lute and books

GREMIO
Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.

BAPTISTA
Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.
God save you, gentlemen!

PETRUCHIO
And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter
Call’d Katharina, fair and virtuous?

BAPTISTA
I have a daughter, sir, called Katharina.

GREMIO
You are too blunt: go to it orderly.

PETRUCHIO
You wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.
I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,
That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,
Her affability and bashful modesty,
Her wondrous qualities and mild behavior,
Am bold to show myself a forward guest
Within your house, to make mine eye the witness
Of that report which I so oft have heard.
And, for an entrance to my entertainment,
I do present you with a man of mine,

Presenting HORTENSIO

Cunning in music and the mathematics,
To instruct her fully in those sciences,
Whereof I know she is not ignorant:
Accept of him, or else you do me wrong:
His name is Licio, born in Mantua.

BAPTISTA
You’re welcome, sir; and he, for your good sake.
But for my daughter Katharina, this I know,
She is not for your turn, the more my grief.

PETRUCHIO
I see you do not mean to part with her,
Or else you like not of my company.

BAPTISTA
Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.
Whence are you, sir? what may I call your name?

PETRUCHIO
Petruchio is my name; Antonio’s son,
A man well known throughout all Italy.

GREMIO
I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your
wooing. Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am
sure of it. To express the like kindness, myself,
that have been more kindly beholding to you than
any, freely give unto you this young scholar,

Presenting LUCENTIO

that hath been long studying at Rheims; as cunning
in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other
in music and mathematics: his name is Cambio; pray,
accept his service.

BAPTISTA
A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.
Welcome, good Cambio.

To TRANIO

But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger:
may I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?

TRANIO
Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,
That, being a stranger in this city here,
Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,
Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.
Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me,
In the preferment of the eldest sister.
This liberty is all that I request,
That, upon knowledge of my parentage,
I may have welcome ‘mongst the rest that woo
And free access and favour as the rest:
And, toward the education of your daughters,
I here bestow a simple instrument,
And this small packet of Greek and Latin books:
If you accept them, then their worth is great.

BAPTISTA
Lucentio is your name; of whence, I pray?

TRANIO
Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.

BAPTISTA
A mighty man of Pisa; by report
I know him well: you are very welcome, sir,
Take you the lute, and you the set of books;
You shall go see your pupils presently.
Holla, within!

Enter a Servant

Sirrah, lead these gentlemen
To my daughters; and tell them both,
These are their tutors: bid them use them well.

Exit Servant, with LUCENTIO and HORTENSIO, BIONDELLO following

We will go walk a little in the orchard,
And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.

PETRUCHIO
Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have better’d rather than decreased:
Then tell me, if I get your daughter’s love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

BAPTISTA
After my death the one half of my lands,
And in possession twenty thousand crowns.

PETRUCHIO
And, for that dowry, I’ll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever:
Let specialties be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.

BAPTISTA
Ay, when the special thing is well obtain’d,
That is, her love; for that is all in all.

PETRUCHIO
Why, that is nothing: for I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:
So I to her and so she yields to me;
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.

BAPTISTA
Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!
But be thou arm’d for some unhappy words.

PETRUCHIO
Ay, to the proof; as mountains are for winds,
That shake not, though they blow perpetually.

Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke

BAPTISTA
How now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?

HORTENSIO
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

BAPTISTA
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?

HORTENSIO
I think she’ll sooner prove a soldier
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.

BAPTISTA
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?

HORTENSIO
Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bow’d her hand to teach her fingering;
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
‘Frets, call you these?’ quoth she; ‘I’ll fume
with them:’
And, with that word, she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute;
While she did call me rascal fiddler
And twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms,
As had she studied to misuse me so.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;
I love her ten times more than e’er I did:
O, how I long to have some chat with her!

BAPTISTA
Well, go with me and be not so discomfited:
Proceed in practise with my younger daughter;
She’s apt to learn and thankful for good turns.
Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,
Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?

PETRUCHIO
I pray you do.

Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO

I will attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail; why then I’ll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:
Say that she frown, I’ll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash’d with dew:
Say she be mute and will not speak a word;
Then I’ll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence:
If she do bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks,
As though she bid me stay by her a week:
If she deny to wed, I’ll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns and when be married.
But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.

Enter KATHARINA

Good morrow, Kate; for that’s your name, I hear.

KATHARINA
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katharina that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIO
You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

KATHARINA
Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence: I knew you at the first
You were a moveable.

PETRUCHIO
Why, what’s a moveable?

KATHARINA
A join’d-stool.

PETRUCHIO
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.

KATHARINA
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

PETRUCHIO
Women are made to bear, and so are you.

KATHARINA
No such jade as you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIO
Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;
For, knowing thee to be but young and light–

KATHARINA
Too light for such a swain as you to catch;
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIO
Should be! should–buzz!

KATHARINA
Well ta’en, and like a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
O slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?

KATHARINA
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry.

KATHARINA
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO
My remedy is then, to pluck it out.

KATHARINA
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,

PETRUCHIO
Who knows not where a wasp does
wear his sting? In his tail.

KATHARINA
So may you lose your arms:
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

PETRUCHIO
A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!

KATHARINA
What is your crest? a coxcomb?

PETRUCHIO
A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.

KATHARINA
No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.

KATHARINA
It is my fashion, when I see a crab.

PETRUCHIO
Why, here’s no crab; and therefore look not sour.

KATHARINA
There is, there is.

PETRUCHIO
Then show it me.

KATHARINA
Had I a glass, I would.

PETRUCHIO
What, you mean my face?

KATHARINA
Well aim’d of such a young one.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.

KATHARINA
Yet you are wither’d.

PETRUCHIO
‘Tis with cares.

KATHARINA
I care not.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.

KATHARINA
I chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.

PETRUCHIO
No, not a whit: I find you passing gentle.
‘Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar;
For thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers:
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,
But thou with mildness entertain’st thy wooers,
With gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender and as brown in hue
As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.
O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.

KATHARINA
Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command.

PETRUCHIO
Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;
And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!

KATHARINA
Where did you study all this goodly speech?

PETRUCHIO
It is extempore, from my mother-wit.

KATHARINA
A witty mother! witless else her son.

PETRUCHIO
Am I not wise?

KATHARINA
Yes; keep you warm.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed:
And therefore, setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife; your dowry ‘greed on;
And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;
For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,
Thy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,
Thou must be married to no man but me;
For I am he am born to tame you Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.
Here comes your father: never make denial;
I must and will have Katharina to my wife.

Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO

BAPTISTA
Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?

PETRUCHIO
How but well, sir? how but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.

BAPTISTA
Why, how now, daughter Katharina! in your dumps?

KATHARINA
Call you me daughter? now, I promise you
You have show’d a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half lunatic;
A mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.

PETRUCHIO
Father, ’tis thus: yourself and all the world,
That talk’d of her, have talk’d amiss of her:
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she’s not froward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity:
And to conclude, we have ‘greed so well together,
That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.

KATHARINA
I’ll see thee hang’d on Sunday first.

GREMIO
Hark, Petruchio; she says she’ll see thee
hang’d first.

TRANIO
Is this your speeding? nay, then, good night our part!

PETRUCHIO
Be patient, gentlemen; I choose her for myself:
If she and I be pleased, what’s that to you?
‘Tis bargain’d ‘twixt us twain, being alone,
That she shall still be curst in company.
I tell you, ’tis incredible to believe
How much she loves me: O, the kindest Kate!
She hung about my neck; and kiss on kiss
She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,
That in a twink she won me to her love.
O, you are novices! ’tis a world to see,
How tame, when men and women are alone,
A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.
Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice,
To buy apparel ‘gainst the wedding-day.
Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;
I will be sure my Katharina shall be fine.

BAPTISTA
I know not what to say: but give me your hands;
God send you joy, Petruchio! ’tis a match.

GREMIO TRANIO
Amen, say we: we will be witnesses.

PETRUCHIO
Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:
We will have rings and things and fine array;
And kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’Sunday.

Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA severally

GREMIO
Was ever match clapp’d up so suddenly?

BAPTISTA
Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant’s part,
And venture madly on a desperate mart.

TRANIO
‘Twas a commodity lay fretting by you:
‘Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.

BAPTISTA
The gain I seek is, quiet in the match.

GREMIO
No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.
But now, Baptists, to your younger daughter:
Now is the day we long have looked for:
I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.

TRANIO
And I am one that love Bianca more
Than words can witness, or your thoughts can guess.

BAPTISTA
Content you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife:
‘Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca’s love.
Say, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her?

GREMIO
First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold;
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss’d with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needlework,
Pewter and brass and all things that belong
To house or housekeeping: then, at my farm
I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,
Sixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls,
And all things answerable to this portion.
Myself am struck in years, I must confess;
And if I die to-morrow, this is hers,
If whilst I live she will be only mine.

TRANIO
That ‘only’ came well in. Sir, list to me:
I am my father’s heir and only son:
If I may have your daughter to my wife,
I’ll leave her houses three or four as good,
Within rich Pisa walls, as any one
Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;
Besides two thousand ducats by the year
Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.
What, have I pinch’d you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO
Two thousand ducats by the year of land!
My land amounts not to so much in all:
That she shall have; besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marseilles’ road.
What, have I choked you with an argosy?

TRANIO
Gremio, ’tis known my father hath no less
Than three great argosies; besides two galliases,
And twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her,
And twice as much, whate’er thou offer’st next.

GREMIO
Nay, I have offer’d all, I have no more;
And she can have no more than all I have:
If you like me, she shall have me and mine.

TRANIO
Why, then the maid is mine from all the world,
By your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied.

BAPTISTA
I must confess your offer is the best;
And, let your father make her the assurance,
She is your own; else, you must pardon me,
if you should die before him, where’s her dower?

TRANIO
That’s but a cavil: he is old, I young.

GREMIO
And may not young men die, as well as old?

BAPTISTA
Well, gentlemen,
I am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know
My daughter Katharina is to be married:
Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca
Be bride to you, if you this assurance;
If not, Signior Gremio:
And so, I take my leave, and thank you both.

GREMIO
Adieu, good neighbour.

Exit BAPTISTA

Now I fear thee not:
Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool
To give thee all, and in his waning age
Set foot under thy table: tut, a toy!
An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.

Exit

TRANIO
A vengeance on your crafty wither’d hide!
Yet I have faced it with a card of ten.
‘Tis in my head to do my master good:
I see no reason but supposed Lucentio
Must get a father, call’d ‘supposed Vincentio;’
And that’s a wonder: fathers commonly
Do get their children; but in this case of wooing,
A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.

SLY
Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I’ll answer him
by law: I’ll not budge an inch, boy: let him come,
and kindly.

Falls asleep

Horns winded. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his train

Lord
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:
Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss’d;
And couple Clowder with the deep–mouth’d brach.
Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.

First Huntsman
Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss
And twice to-day pick’d out the dullest scent:
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

Lord
Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well and look unto them all:
To-morrow I intend to hunt again.

First Huntsman
I will, my lord.

Lord
What’s here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?

Second Huntsman
He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm’d with ale,
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.

Lord
O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were convey’d to bed,
Wrapp’d in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?

First Huntsman
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.

Second Huntsman
It would seem strange unto him when he waked.

Lord
Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up and manage well the jest:
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures:
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet:
Procure me music ready when he wakes,
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight
And with a low submissive reverence
Say ‘What is it your honour will command?’
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of rose-water and bestrew’d with flowers,
Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
And say ‘Will’t please your lordship cool your hands?’
Some one be ready with a costly suit
And ask him what apparel he will wear;
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
And that his lady mourns at his disease:
Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
And when he says he is, say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.

First Huntsman
My lord, I warrant you we will play our part,
As he shall think by our true diligence
He is no less than what we say he is.

Lord
Take him up gently and to bed with him;
And each one to his office when he wakes.

Some bear out SLY. A trumpet sounds

Sirrah, go see what trumpet ’tis that sounds:

Exit Servingman

Belike, some noble gentleman that means,
Travelling some journey, to repose him here.

Lord
With all my heart. This fellow I remember,
Since once he play’d a farmer’s eldest son:
‘Twas where you woo’d the gentlewoman so well:
I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally perform’d.

A Player
I think ’twas Soto that your honour means.

Lord
‘Tis very true: thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in a happy time;
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play to-night:
But I am doubtful of your modesties;
Lest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,–
For yet his honour never heard a play–
You break into some merry passion
And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile he grows impatient.

A Player
Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves,
Were he the veriest antic in the world.

Lord
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome every one:
Let them want nothing that my house affords.

Exit one with the Players

Sirrah, go you to Barthol’mew my page,
And see him dress’d in all suits like a lady:
That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber;
And call him ‘madam,’ do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observed in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished:
Such duty to the drunkard let him do
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say ‘What is’t your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?’
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy’d
To see her noble lord restored to health,
Who for this seven years hath esteem’d him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar:
And if the boy have not a woman’s gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which in a napkin being close convey’d
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst:
Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.

Exit a Servingman

I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:
I long to hear him call the drunkard husband,
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I’ll in to counsel them; haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.

Exeunt

SCENE II. A bedchamber in the Lord’s house.

Enter aloft SLY, with Attendants; some with apparel, others with basin and ewer and appurtenances; and Lord
SLY
For God’s sake, a pot of small ale.

First Servant
Will’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack?

Second Servant
Will’t please your honour taste of these conserves?

Third Servant
What raiment will your honour wear to-day?

SLY
I am Christophero Sly; call not me ‘honour’ nor
‘lordship:’ I ne’er drank sack in my life; and if
you give me any conserves, give me conserves of
beef: ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear; for I
have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings
than legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay,
sometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my
toes look through the over-leather.

Lord
Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!

SLY
What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher
Sly, old Sly’s son of Burtonheath, by birth a
pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a
bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker?
Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if
she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence
on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the
lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not
bestraught: here’s–

And twenty caged nightingales do sing:
Or wilt thou sleep? we’ll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm’d up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground:
Or wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp’d,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.

First Servant
Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.

Second Servant
Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

Lord
We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid,
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.

Third Servant
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.

Lord
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.

First Servant
And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.

SLY
Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? or have I dream’d till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;
I smell sweet savours and I feel soft things:
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed
And not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale.

Second Servant
Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?
O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream;
Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.

SLY
These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?

First Servant
O, yes, my lord, but very idle words:
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;
And rail upon the hostess of the house;
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal’d quarts:
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.

SLY
Ay, the woman’s maid of the house.

Third Servant
Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up,
As Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell
And twenty more such names and men as these
Which never were nor no man ever saw.

SLY
Now Lord be thanked for my good amends!

ALL
Amen.

SLY
I thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it.

Enter the Page as a lady, with attendants

Page
How fares my noble lord?

SLY
Marry, I fare well for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?

Page
Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her?

SLY
Are you my wife and will not call me husband?
My men should call me ‘lord:’ I am your goodman.

SLY
Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d
And slept above some fifteen year or more.

Page
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon’d from your bed.

SLY
‘Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you and come now to bed.

Page
Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two,
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charged,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.

SLY
Ay, it stands so that I may hardly
tarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into
my dreams again: I will therefore tarry in
despite of the flesh and the blood.

Enter a Messenger

Messenger
Your honour’s players, heating your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.

SLY
Marry, I will, let them play it. Is not a
comondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?

Page
No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.

SLY
What, household stuff?

Page
It is a kind of history.

SLY
Well, well see’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my side
and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger.

Flourish

ACT I
SCENE I. Padua. A public place.

Enter LUCENTIO and his man TRANIO
LUCENTIO
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy;
And by my father’s love and leave am arm’d
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant, well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renown’d for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincetino come of Bentivolii.
Vincetino’s son brought up in Florence
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

TRANIO
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle’s cheques
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en:
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

LUCENTIO
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
But stay a while: what company is this?

BAPTISTA
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolved you know;
That is, not bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder:
If either of you both love Katharina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.

GREMIO
[Aside] To cart her rather: she’s too rough for me.
There, There, Hortensio, will you any wife?

KATHARINA
I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

HORTENSIO
Mates, maid! how mean you that? no mates for you,
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.

KATHARINA
I’faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:
I wis it is not half way to her heart;
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legg’d stool
And paint your face and use you like a fool.

HORTENSIA
From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!

GREMIO
And me too, good Lord!

TRANIO
Hush, master! here’s some good pastime toward:
That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.

LUCENTIO
But in the other’s silence do I see
Maid’s mild behavior and sobriety.
Peace, Tranio!

TRANIO
Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.

BAPTISTA
Gentlemen, that I may soon make good
What I have said, Bianca, get you in:
And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,
For I will love thee ne’er the less, my girl.

KATHARINA
A pretty peat! it is best
Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.

BIANCA
Sister, content you in my discontent.
Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
My books and instruments shall be my company,
On them to took and practise by myself.

LUCENTIO
Hark, Tranio! thou may’st hear Minerva speak.

HORTENSIO
Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?
Sorry am I that our good will effects
Bianca’s grief.

GREMIO
Why will you mew her up,
Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
And make her bear the penance of her tongue?

BAPTISTA
Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolved:
Go in, Bianca:

Exit BIANCA

And for I know she taketh most delight
In music, instruments and poetry,
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house,
Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such,
Prefer them hither; for to cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up:
And so farewell. Katharina, you may stay;
For I have more to commune with Bianca.

Exit

KATHARINA
Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What,
shall I be appointed hours; as though, belike, I
knew not what to take and what to leave, ha?

Exit

GREMIO
You may go to the devil’s dam: your gifts are so
good, here’s none will hold you. Their love is not
so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails
together, and fast it fairly out: our cakes dough on
both sides. Farewell: yet for the love I bear my
sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit
man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will
wish him to her father.

HORTENSIO
So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray.
Though the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked
parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both,
that we may yet again have access to our fair
mistress and be happy rivals in Bianco’s love, to
labour and effect one thing specially.

GREMIO
What’s that, I pray?

HORTENSIO
Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

GREMIO
A husband! a devil.

HORTENSIO
I say, a husband.

GREMIO
I say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though
her father be very rich, any man is so very a fool
to be married to hell?

HORTENSIO
Tush, Gremio, though it pass your patience and mine
to endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good
fellows in the world, an a man could light on them,
would take her with all faults, and money enough.

GREMIO
I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with
this condition, to be whipped at the high cross
every morning.

HORTENSIO
Faith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten
apples. But come; since this bar in law makes us
friends, it shall be so far forth friendly
maintained all by helping Baptista’s eldest daughter
to a husband we set his youngest free for a husband,
and then have to’t a fresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man
be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.
How say you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO
I am agreed; and would I had given him the best
horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would
thoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the
house of her! Come on.

Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO

TRANIO
I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?

LUCENTIO
O Tranio, till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness:
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

TRANIO
Master, it is no time to chide you now;
Affection is not rated from the heart:
If love have touch’d you, nought remains but so,
‘Redime te captum quam queas minimo.’

TRANIO
Master, you look’d so longly on the maid,
Perhaps you mark’d not what’s the pith of all.

LUCENTIO
O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,
Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand.
When with his knees he kiss’d the Cretan strand.

TRANIO
Saw you no more? mark’d you not how her sister
Began to scold and raise up such a storm
That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?

LUCENTIO
Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move
And with her breath she did perfume the air:
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

TRANIO
Nay, then, ’tis time to stir him from his trance.
I pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,
Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:
Her eldest sister is so curst and shrewd
That till the father rid his hands of her,
Master, your love must live a maid at home;
And therefore has he closely mew’d her up,
Because she will not be annoy’d with suitors.

LUCENTIO
Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father’s he!
But art thou not advised, he took some care
To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?

TRANIO
Ay, marry, am I, sir; and now ’tis plotted.

LUCENTIO
I have it, Tranio.

TRANIO
Master, for my hand,
Both our inventions meet and jump in one.

LUCENTIO
Tell me thine first.

TRANIO
You will be schoolmaster
And undertake the teaching of the maid:
That’s your device.

LUCENTIO
It is: may it be done?

TRANIO
Not possible; for who shall bear your part,
And be in Padua here Vincentio’s son,
Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,
Visit his countrymen and banquet them?

LUCENTIO
Basta; content thee, for I have it full.
We have not yet been seen in any house,
Nor can we lie distinguish’d by our faces
For man or master; then it follows thus;
Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,
Keep house and port and servants as I should:
I will some other be, some Florentine,
Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.
‘Tis hatch’d and shall be so: Tranio, at once
Uncase thee; take my colour’d hat and cloak:
When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;
But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.

TRANIO
So had you need.
In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
And I am tied to be obedient;
For so your father charged me at our parting,
‘Be serviceable to my son,’ quoth he,
Although I think ’twas in another sense;
I am content to be Lucentio,
Because so well I love Lucentio.

BIONDELLO
Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or
you stolen his? or both? pray, what’s the news?

LUCENTIO
Sirrah, come hither: ’tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,
Puts my apparel and my countenance on,
And I for my escape have put on his;
For in a quarrel since I came ashore
I kill’d a man and fear I was descried:
Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
While I make way from hence to save my life:
You understand me?

BIONDELLO
I, sir! ne’er a whit.

LUCENTIO
And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:
Tranio is changed into Lucentio.

BIONDELLO
The better for him: would I were so too!

TRANIO
So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
That Lucentio indeed had Baptista’s youngest daughter.
But, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master’s, I advise
You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:
When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;
But in all places else your master Lucentio.

LUCENTIO
Tranio, let’s go: one thing more rests, that
thyself execute, to make one among these wooers: if
thou ask me why, sufficeth, my reasons are both good
and weighty.

Exeunt

The presenters above speak

First Servant
My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.

SLY
Yes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely:
comes there any more of it?

Page
My lord, ’tis but begun.

SLY
‘Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady:
would ’twere done!

They sit and mark

SCENE II. Padua. Before HORTENSIO’S house.

Enter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO
PETRUCHIO
Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua, but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say.

GRUMIO
Knock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man has
rebused your worship?

PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.

GRUMIO
Knock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that
I should knock you here, sir?

GRUMIO
Nay, ’tis no matter, sir, what he ‘leges in Latin.
if this be not a lawful case for me to leave his
service, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap
him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to
use his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see,
two and thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had
well knock’d at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst.

PETRUCHIO
A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate
And could not get him for my heart to do it.

GRUMIO
Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these
words plain, ‘Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here,
knock me well, and knock me soundly’? And come you
now with, ‘knocking at the gate’?

PETRUCHIO
Such wind as scatters young men through the world,
To seek their fortunes farther than at home
Where small experience grows. But in a few,
Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceased;
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as best I may:
Crowns in my purse I have and goods at home,
And so am come abroad to see the world.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee
And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour’d wife?
Thou’ldst thank me but a little for my counsel:
And yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich
And very rich: but thou’rt too much my friend,
And I’ll not wish thee to her.

PETRUCHIO
Signior Hortensio, ‘twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife,
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,
Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,
As old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates’ Xanthippe, or a worse,
She moves me not, or not removes, at least,
Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas:
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

GRUMIO
Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his
mind is: Why give him gold enough and marry him to
a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne’er
a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases
as two and fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss,
so money comes withal.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, since we are stepp’d thus far in,
I will continue that I broach’d in jest.
I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife
With wealth enough and young and beauteous,
Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:
Her only fault, and that is faults enough,
Is that she is intolerable curst
And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure
That, were my state far worser than it is,
I would not wed her for a mine of gold.

PETRUCHIO
Hortensio, peace! thou know’st not gold’s effect:
Tell me her father’s name and ’tis enough;
For I will board her, though she chide as loud
As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.

HORTENSIO
Her father is Baptista Minola,
An affable and courteous gentleman:
Her name is Katharina Minola,
Renown’d in Padua for her scolding tongue.

PETRUCHIO
I know her father, though I know not her;
And he knew my deceased father well.
I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;
And therefore let me be thus bold with you
To give you over at this first encounter,
Unless you will accompany me thither.

GRUMIO
I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts.
O’ my word, an she knew him as well as I do, she
would think scolding would do little good upon him:
she may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so:
why, that’s nothing; an he begin once, he’ll rail in
his rope-tricks. I’ll tell you what sir, an she
stand him but a little, he will throw a figure in
her face and so disfigure her with it that she
shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.
You know him not, sir.

HORTENSIO
Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,
For in Baptista’s keep my treasure is:
He hath the jewel of my life in hold,
His youngest daughter, beautiful Binaca,
And her withholds from me and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love,
Supposing it a thing impossible,
For those defects I have before rehearsed,
That ever Katharina will be woo’d;
Therefore this order hath Baptista ta’en,
That none shall have access unto Bianca
Till Katharina the curst have got a husband.

GRUMIO
Katharina the curst!
A title for a maid of all titles the worst.

HORTENSIO
Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,
And offer me disguised in sober robes
To old Baptista as a schoolmaster
Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;
That so I may, by this device, at least
Have leave and leisure to make love to her
And unsuspected court her by herself.

GRUMIO
Here’s no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks,
how the young folks lay their heads together!

Enter GREMIO, and LUCENTIO disguised

Master, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?

HORTENSIO
Peace, Grumio! it is the rival of my love.
Petruchio, stand by a while.

GRUMIO
A proper stripling and an amorous!

GREMIO
O, very well; I have perused the note.
Hark you, sir: I’ll have them very fairly bound:
All books of love, see that at any hand;
And see you read no other lectures to her:
You understand me: over and beside
Signior Baptista’s liberality,
I’ll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,
And let me have them very well perfumed
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to. What will you read to her?

LUCENTIO
Whate’er I read to her, I’ll plead for you
As for my patron, stand you so assured,
As firmly as yourself were still in place:
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.

GREMIO
O this learning, what a thing it is!

GRUMIO
O this woodcock, what an ass it is!

PETRUCHIO
Peace, sirrah!

HORTENSIO
Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio.

GREMIO
And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.
Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.
I promised to inquire carefully
About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca:
And by good fortune I have lighted well
On this young man, for learning and behavior
Fit for her turn, well read in poetry
And other books, good ones, I warrant ye.

HORTENSIO
‘Tis well; and I have met a gentleman
Hath promised me to help me to another,
A fine musician to instruct our mistress;
So shall I no whit be behind in duty
To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.

GREMIO
Beloved of me; and that my deeds shall prove.

GRUMIO
And that his bags shall prove.

HORTENSIO
Gremio, ’tis now no time to vent our love:
Listen to me, and if you speak me fair,
I’ll tell you news indifferent good for either.
Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,
Upon agreement from us to his liking,
Will undertake to woo curst Katharina,
Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.

GREMIO
So said, so done, is well.
Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?

PETRUCHIO
I know she is an irksome brawling scold:
If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.

GREMIO
No, say’st me so, friend? What countryman?

PETRUCHIO
Born in Verona, old Antonio’s son:
My father dead, my fortune lives for me;
And I do hope good days and long to see.

GREMIO
O sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!
But if you have a stomach, to’t i’ God’s name:
You shall have me assisting you in all.
But will you woo this wild-cat?

PETRUCHIO
Will I live?

GRUMIO
Will he woo her? ay, or I’ll hang her.

PETRUCHIO
Why came I hither but to that intent?
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea puff’d up with winds
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud ‘larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets’ clang?
And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire?
Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.

GRUMIO
For he fears none.

GREMIO
Hortensio, hark:
This gentleman is happily arrived,
My mind presumes, for his own good and ours.

HORTENSIO
I promised we would be contributors
And bear his charging of wooing, whatsoe’er.

GREMIO
And so we will, provided that he win her.

GRUMIO
I would I were as sure of a good dinner.

Enter TRANIO brave, and BIONDELLO

TRANIO
Gentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold,
Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way
To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?

BIONDELLO
He that has the two fair daughters: is’t he you mean?

TRANIO
Even he, Biondello.

GREMIO
Hark you, sir; you mean not her to–

TRANIO
Perhaps, him and her, sir: what have you to do?

PETRUCHIO
Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.

TRANIO
I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let’s away.

LUCENTIO
Well begun, Tranio.

HORTENSIO
Sir, a word ere you go;
Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?

TRANIO
And if I be, sir, is it any offence?

GREMIO
No; if without more words you will get you hence.

TRANIO
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free
For me as for you?

GREMIO
But so is not she.

TRANIO
For what reason, I beseech you?

GREMIO
For this reason, if you’ll know,
That she’s the choice love of Signior Gremio.

HORTENSIO
That she’s the chosen of Signior Hortensio.

TRANIO
Softly, my masters! if you be gentlemen,
Do me this right; hear me with patience.
Baptista is a noble gentleman,
To whom my father is not all unknown;
And were his daughter fairer than she is,
She may more suitors have and me for one.
Fair Leda’s daughter had a thousand wooers;
Then well one more may fair Bianca have:
And so she shall; Lucentio shall make one,
Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.

GREMIO
What! this gentleman will out-talk us all.

LUCENTIO
Sir, give him head: I know he’ll prove a jade.

PETRUCHIO
Hortensio, to what end are all these words?

HORTENSIO
Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,
Did you yet ever see Baptista’s daughter?

TRANIO
No, sir; but hear I do that he hath two,
The one as famous for a scolding tongue
As is the other for beauteous modesty.

PETRUCHIO
Sir, sir, the first’s for me; let her go by.

GREMIO
Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules;
And let it be more than Alcides’ twelve.

PETRUCHIO
Sir, understand you this of me in sooth:
The younges t daughter whom you hearken for
Her father keeps from all access of suitors,
And will not promise her to any man
Until the elder sister first be wed:
The younger then is free and not before.

TRANIO
If it be so, sir, that you are the man
Must stead us all and me amongst the rest,
And if you break the ice and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free
For our access, whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.

HORTENSIO
Sir, you say well and well you do conceive;
And since you do profess to be a suitor,
You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,
To whom we all rest generally beholding.

TRANIO
Sir, I shall not be slack: in sign whereof,
Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,
And quaff carouses to our mistress’ health,
And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

GRUMIO BIONDELLO
O excellent motion! Fellows, let’s be gone.

HORTENSIO
The motion’s good indeed and be it so,
Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.

The Taming of the Shrew, ACT V, SCENE I. Padua. Before LUCENTIO’S house.

GREMIO discovered. Enter behind BIONDELLO, LUCENTIO, and BIANCA

BIONDELLO
Softly and swiftly, sir; for the priest is ready.

LUCENTIO
I fly, Biondello: but they may chance to need thee
at home; therefore leave us.

BIONDELLO
Nay, faith, I’ll see the church o’ your back; and
then come back to my master’s as soon as I can.

Exeunt LUCENTIO, BIANCA, and BIONDELLO

GREMIO
I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.

Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, VINCENTIO, GRUMIO, with Attendants

PETRUCHIO
Sir, here’s the door, this is Lucentio’s house:
My father’s bears more toward the market-place;
Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.

VINCENTIO
You shall not choose but drink before you go:
I think I shall command your welcome here,
And, by all likelihood, some cheer is toward.

Knocks

GREMIO
They’re busy within; you were best knock louder.

Pedant looks out of the window

Pedant
What’s he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?

VINCENTIO
Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?

Pedant
He’s within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.

VINCENTIO
What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two, to
make merry withal?

Pedant
Keep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall
need none, so long as I live.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua.
Do you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances,
I pray you, tell Signior Lucentio that his father is
come from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with him.

Pedant
Thou liest: his father is come from Padua and here
looking out at the window.

VINCENTIO
Art thou his father?

Pedant
Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.

PETRUCHIO
[To VINCENTIO] Why, how now, gentleman! why, this
is flat knavery, to take upon you another man’s name.

Pedant
Lay hands on the villain: I believe a’ means to
cozen somebody in this city under my countenance.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

BIONDELLO
I have seen them in the church together: God send
’em good shipping! But who is here? mine old
master Vincentio! now we are undone and brought to nothing.

VINCENTIO
[Seeing BIONDELLO]
Come hither, crack-hemp.

BIONDELLO
Hope I may choose, sir.

VINCENTIO
Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?

BIONDELLO
Forgot you! no, sir: I could not forget you, for I
never saw you before in all my life.

BIONDELLO
What, my old worshipful old master? yes, marry, sir:
see where he looks out of the window.

VINCENTIO
Is’t so, indeed.

Beats BIONDELLO

BIONDELLO
Help, help, help! here’s a madman will murder me.

Exit

Pedant
Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!

Exit from above

PETRUCHIO
Prithee, Kate, let’s stand aside and see the end of
this controversy.

They retire

Re-enter Pedant below; TRANIO, BAPTISTA, and Servants

TRANIO
Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?

VINCENTIO
What am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal
gods! O fine villain! A silken doublet! a velvet
hose! a scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat! O, I
am undone! I am undone! while I play the good
husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at
the university.

TRANIO
How now! what’s the matter?

BAPTISTA
What, is the man lunatic?

TRANIO
Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your
habit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir,
what ‘cerns it you if I wear pearl and gold? I
thank my good father, I am able to maintain it.

VINCENTIO
Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.

BAPTISTA
You mistake, sir, you mistake, sir. Pray, what do
you think is his name?

VINCENTIO
His name! as if I knew not his name: I have brought
him up ever since he was three years old, and his
name is Tranio.

Pedant
Away, away, mad ass! his name is Lucentio and he is
mine only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.

BIONDELLO
O! we are spoiled and–yonder he is: deny him,
forswear him, or else we are all undone.

LUCENTIO
[Kneeling] Pardon, sweet father.

VINCENTIO
Lives my sweet son?

Exeunt BIONDELLO, TRANIO, and Pedant, as fast as may be

BIANCA
Pardon, dear father.

BAPTISTA
How hast thou offended?
Where is Lucentio?

LUCENTIO
Here’s Lucentio,
Right son to the right Vincentio;
That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,
While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.

GREMIO
Here’s packing, with a witness to deceive us all!

VINCENTIO
Where is that damned villain Tranio,
That faced and braved me in this matter so?

BAPTISTA
Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?

BIANCA
Cambio is changed into Lucentio.

LUCENTIO
Love wrought these miracles. Bianca’s love
Made me exchange my state with Tranio,
While he did bear my countenance in the town;
And happily I have arrived at the last
Unto the wished haven of my bliss.
What Tranio did, myself enforced him to;
Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.

VINCENTIO
I’ll slit the villain’s nose, that would have sent
me to the gaol.

BAPTISTA
But do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter
without asking my good will?

VINCENTIO
Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but
I will in, to be revenged for this villany.

Exit

BAPTISTA
And I, to sound the depth of this knavery.

Exit

LUCENTIO
Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.

Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA

GREMIO
My cake is dough; but I’ll in among the rest,
Out of hope of all, but my share of the feast.

Exit

KATHARINA
Husband, let’s follow, to see the end of this ado.

PETRUCHIO
First kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATHARINA
What, in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIO
What, art thou ashamed of me?

KATHARINA
No, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.

PETRUCHIO
Why, then let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away.

KATHARINA
Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.

PETRUCHIO
Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:
Better once than never, for never too late.

Exeunt

SCENE II. Padua. LUCENTIO’S house.

Enter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the Pedant, LUCENTIO, BIANCA, PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Widow, TRANIO, BIONDELLO, and GRUMIO the Serving-men with Tranio bringing in a banquet
LUCENTIO
At last, though long, our jarring notes agree:
And time it is, when raging war is done,
To smile at scapes and perils overblown.
My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,
While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.
Brother Petruchio, sister Katharina,
And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
Feast with the best, and welcome to my house:
My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;
For now we sit to chat as well as eat.

PETRUCHIO
Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!

BAPTISTA
Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

PETRUCHIO
Padua affords nothing but what is kind.

HORTENSIO
For both our sakes, I would that word were true.

PETRUCHIO
Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.

Widow
Then never trust me, if I be afeard.

PETRUCHIO
You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:
I mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.

Widow
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

PETRUCHIO
Roundly replied.

KATHARINA
Mistress, how mean you that?

Widow
Thus I conceive by him.

PETRUCHIO
Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?

HORTENSIO
My widow says, thus she conceives her tale.

PETRUCHIO
Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.

KATHARINA
‘He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:’
I pray you, tell me what you meant by that.

Widow
Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,
Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe:
And now you know my meaning,

KATHARINA
A very mean meaning.

Widow
Right, I mean you.

KATHARINA
And I am mean indeed, respecting you.

PETRUCHIO
To her, Kate!

HORTENSIO
To her, widow!

PETRUCHIO
A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.

HORTENSIO
That’s my office.

PETRUCHIO
Spoke like an officer; ha’ to thee, lad!

Drinks to HORTENSIO

BAPTISTA
How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

GREMIO
Believe me, sir, they butt together well.

BIANCA
Head, and butt! an hasty-witted body
Would say your head and butt were head and horn.

VINCENTIO
Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken’d you?

BIANCA
Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I’ll sleep again.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, that you shall not: since you have begun,
Have at you for a bitter jest or two!

BIANCA
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;
And then pursue me as you draw your bow.
You are welcome all.

Exeunt BIANCA, KATHARINA, and Widow

PETRUCHIO
She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio.
This bird you aim’d at, though you hit her not;
Therefore a health to all that shot and miss’d.

TRANIO
O, sir, Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself and catches for his master.

PETRUCHIO
A good swift simile, but something currish.

TRANIO
‘Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
‘Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTA
O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.

LUCENTIO
I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.

HORTENSIO
Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCHIO
A’ has a little gall’d me, I confess;
And, as the jest did glance away from me,
‘Tis ten to one it maim’d you two outright.

BAPTISTA
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

PETRUCHIO
Well, I say no: and therefore for assurance
Let’s each one send unto his wife;
And he whose wife is most obedient
To come at first when he doth send for her,
Shall win the wager which we will propose.

HORTENSIO
Content. What is the wager?

LUCENTIO
Twenty crowns.

PETRUCHIO
Twenty crowns!
I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIO
A hundred then.

HORTENSIO
Content.

PETRUCHIO
A match! ’tis done.

HORTENSIO
Who shall begin?

LUCENTIO
That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLO
I go.

Exit

BAPTISTA
Son, I’ll be your half, Bianca comes.

LUCENTIO
I’ll have no halves; I’ll bear it all myself.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

How now! what news?

BIONDELLO
Sir, my mistress sends you word
That she is busy and she cannot come.

PETRUCHIO
How! she is busy and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?

GREMIO
Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

HORTENSIO
I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

Now, where’s my wife?

BIONDELLO
She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come: she bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIO
Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endured!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;
Say, I command her to come to me.

Exit GRUMIO

HORTENSIO
I know her answer.

PETRUCHIO
What?

HORTENSIO
She will not.

PETRUCHIO
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

BAPTISTA
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!

Re-enter KATARINA

KATHARINA
What is your will, sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIO
Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?

KATHARINA
They sit conferring by the parlor fire.

PETRUCHIO
Go fetch them hither: if they deny to come.
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

Exit KATHARINA

LUCENTIO
Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIO
And so it is: I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,
And awful rule and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not, that’s sweet and happy?

BAPTISTA
Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is changed, as she had never been.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, I will win my wager better yet
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.
See where she comes and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.

Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow

Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot.

Widow
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

BIANCA
Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO
I would your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.

BIANCA
The more fool you, for laying on my duty.

PETRUCHIO
Katharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

Widow
Come, come, you’re mocking: we will have no telling.

PETRUCHIO
Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

Widow
She shall not.

PETRUCHIO
I say she shall: and first begin with her.

KATHARINA
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

PETRUCHIO
Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

LUCENTIO
Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha’t.

VINCENTIO
‘Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

LUCENTIO
But a harsh hearing when women are froward.

PETRUCHIO
Come, Kate, we’ll to bed.
We three are married, but you two are sped.

To LUCENTIO

‘Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;
And, being a winner, God give you good night!

Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA

HORTENSIO
Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.

LUCENTIO
‘Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.

Exeunt

Come back on 01/25/16 and join me for fun with Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor

GRUMIO
Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and
all foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? was ever
man so rayed? was ever man so weary? I am sent
before to make a fire, and they are coming after to
warm them. Now, were not I a little pot and soon
hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my
tongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my
belly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me: but
I, with blowing the fire, shall warm myself; for,
considering the weather, a taller man than I will
take cold. Holla, ho! Curtis.

Enter CURTIS

CURTIS
Who is that calls so coldly?

GRUMIO
A piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide
from my shoulder to my heel with no greater a run
but my head and my neck. A fire good Curtis.

CURTIS
Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?

GRUMIO
O, ay, Curtis, ay: and therefore fire, fire; cast
on no water.

CURTIS
Is she so hot a shrew as she’s reported?

GRUMIO
She was, good Curtis, before this frost: but, thou
knowest, winter tames man, woman and beast; for it
hath tamed my old master and my new mistress and
myself, fellow Curtis.

CURTIS
Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.

GRUMIO
Am I but three inches? why, thy horn is a foot; and
so long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a
fire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress,
whose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon
feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?

CURTIS
I prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world?

GRUMIO
A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and
therefore fire: do thy duty, and have thy duty; for
my master and mistress are almost frozen to death.

CURTIS
There’s fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news.

GRUMIO
Why, ‘Jack, boy! ho! boy!’ and as much news as
will thaw.

CURTIS
Come, you are so full of cony-catching!

GRUMIO
Why, therefore fire; for I have caught extreme cold.
Where’s the cook? is supper ready, the house
trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept; the
serving-men in their new fustian, their white
stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on?
Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without,
the carpets laid, and every thing in order?

GRUMIO
And therefore ’tis called a sensible tale: and this
cuff was but to knock at your ear, and beseech
listening. Now I begin: Imprimis, we came down a
foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress,–

CURTIS
Both of one horse?

GRUMIO
What’s that to thee?

CURTIS
Why, a horse.

GRUMIO
Tell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me,
thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she
under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how
miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her
with the horse upon her, how he beat me because
her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt
to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed,
that never prayed before, how I cried, how the
horses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I
lost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory,
which now shall die in oblivion and thou return
unexperienced to thy grave.

CURTIS
By this reckoning he is more shrew than she.

GRUMIO
Ay; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall
find when he comes home. But what talk I of this?
Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip,
Walter, Sugarsop and the rest: let their heads be
sleekly combed their blue coats brushed and their
garters of an indifferent knit: let them curtsy
with their left legs and not presume to touch a hair
of my master’s horse-tail till they kiss their
hands. Are they all ready?

CURTIS
They are.

GRUMIO
Call them forth.

CURTIS
Do you hear, ho? you must meet my master to
countenance my mistress.

PETRUCHIO
Where be these knaves? What, no man at door
To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!
Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?
ALL SERVING-MEN Here, here, sir; here, sir.

PETRUCHIO
Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!
You logger-headed and unpolish’d grooms!
What, no attendance? no regard? no duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?

GRUMIO
Here, sir; as foolish as I was before.

PETRUCHIO
You peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!
Did I not bid thee meet me in the park,
And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?

GRUMIO
Nathaniel’s coat, sir, was not fully made,
And Gabriel’s pumps were all unpink’d i’ the heel;
There was no link to colour Peter’s hat,
And Walter’s dagger was not come from sheathing:
There were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;
The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;
Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.

PETRUCHIO
Go, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in.

Exeunt Servants

Singing

Where is the life that late I led–
Where are those–Sit down, Kate, and welcome.–
Sound, sound, sound, sound!

Re-enter Servants with supper

Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.
Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?

Sings

It was the friar of orders grey,
As he forth walked on his way:–
Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry:
Take that, and mend the plucking off the other.

Strikes him

Be merry, Kate. Some water, here; what, ho!
Where’s my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,
And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:
One, Kate, that you must kiss, and be acquainted with.
Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?

Enter one with water

Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.
You whoreson villain! will you let it fall?

PETRUCHIO
‘Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.
What dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?
How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,
And serve it thus to me that love it not?
Theretake it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;

Throws the meat, & c. about the stage

You heedless joltheads and unmanner’d slaves!
What, do you grumble? I’ll be with you straight.

KATHARINA
I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet:
The meat was well, if you were so contented.

PETRUCHIO
I tell thee, Kate, ’twas burnt and dried away;
And I expressly am forbid to touch it,
For it engenders choler, planteth anger;
And better ’twere that both of us did fast,
Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,
Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.
Be patient; to-morrow ‘t shall be mended,
And, for this night, we’ll fast for company:
Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.

Exeunt

Re-enter Servants severally

NATHANIEL
Peter, didst ever see the like?

PETER
He kills her in her own humour.

Re-enter CURTIS

GRUMIO
Where is he?

CURTIS
In her chamber, making a sermon of continency to her;
And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,
Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,
And sits as one new-risen from a dream.
Away, away! for he is coming hither.

Exeunt

Re-enter PETRUCHIO

PETRUCHIO
Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And ’tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty;
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come and know her keeper’s call,
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient.
She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;
Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;
As with the meat, some undeserved fault
I’ll find about the making of the bed;
And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets:
Ay, and amid this hurly I intend
That all is done in reverend care of her;
And in conclusion she shall watch all night:
And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and brawl
And with the clamour keep her still awake.
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness;
And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak: ’tis charity to show.

HORTENSIO
Mistake no more: I am not Licio,
Nor a musician, as I seem to be;
But one that scorn to live in this disguise,
For such a one as leaves a gentleman,
And makes a god of such a cullion:
Know, sir, that I am call’d Hortensio.

TRANIO
Signior Hortensio, I have often heard
Of your entire affection to Bianca;
And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,
I will with you, if you be so contented,
Forswear Bianca and her love for ever.

HORTENSIO
See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,
Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow
Never to woo her no more, but do forswear her,
As one unworthy all the former favours
That I have fondly flatter’d her withal.

TRANIO
And here I take the unfeigned oath,
Never to marry with her though she would entreat:
Fie on her! see, how beastly she doth court him!

HORTENSIO
Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!
For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,
I will be married to a wealthy widow,
Ere three days pass, which hath as long loved me
As I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.
And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love: and so I take my leave,
In resolution as I swore before.

Exit

TRANIO
Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace
As ‘longeth to a lover’s blessed case!
Nay, I have ta’en you napping, gentle love,
And have forsworn you with Hortensio.

BIANCA
Tranio, you jest: but have you both forsworn me?

TRANIO
Mistress, we have.

LUCENTIO
Then we are rid of Licio.

TRANIO
I’ faith, he’ll have a lusty widow now,
That shall be wood and wedded in a day.

BIANCA
God give him joy!

TRANIO
Ay, and he’ll tame her.

BIANCA
He says so, Tranio.

TRANIO
Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school.

BIANCA
The taming-school! what, is there such a place?

TRANIO
Ay, mistress, and Petruchio is the master;
That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,
To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.

Enter BIONDELLO

BIONDELLO
O master, master, I have watch’d so long
That I am dog-weary: but at last I spied
An ancient angel coming down the hill,
Will serve the turn.

TRANIO
What is he, Biondello?

BIONDELLO
Master, a mercatante, or a pedant,
I know not what; but format in apparel,
In gait and countenance surely like a father.

LUCENTIO
And what of him, Tranio?

TRANIO
If he be credulous and trust my tale,
I’ll make him glad to seem Vincentio,
And give assurance to Baptista Minola,
As if he were the right Vincentio
Take in your love, and then let me alone.

Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA

Enter a Pedant

Pedant
God save you, sir!

TRANIO
And you, sir! you are welcome.
Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?

Pedant
Sir, at the farthest for a week or two:
But then up farther, and as for as Rome;
And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.

TRANIO
‘Tis death for any one in Mantua
To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?
Your ships are stay’d at Venice, and the duke,
For private quarrel ‘twixt your duke and him,
Hath publish’d and proclaim’d it openly:
‘Tis, marvel, but that you are but newly come,
You might have heard it else proclaim’d about.

Pedant
Alas! sir, it is worse for me than so;
For I have bills for money by exchange
From Florence and must here deliver them.

TRANIO
Well, sir, to do you courtesy,
This will I do, and this I will advise you:
First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?

Pedant
Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,
Pisa renowned for grave citizens.

TRANIO
Among them know you one Vincentio?

Pedant
I know him not, but I have heard of him;
A merchant of incomparable wealth.

TRANIO
To save your life in this extremity,
This favour will I do you for his sake;
And think it not the worst of an your fortunes
That you are like to Sir Vincentio.
His name and credit shall you undertake,
And in my house you shall be friendly lodged:
Look that you take upon you as you should;
You understand me, sir: so shall you stay
Till you have done your business in the city:
If this be courtesy, sir, accept of it.

Pedant
O sir, I do; and will repute you ever
The patron of my life and liberty.

TRANIO
Then go with me to make the matter good.
This, by the way, I let you understand;
my father is here look’d for every day,
To pass assurance of a dower in marriage
‘Twixt me and one Baptista’s daughter here:
In all these circumstances I’ll instruct you:
Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.

Exeunt

SCENE III. A room in PETRUCHIO’S house.

Enter KATHARINA and GRUMIO
GRUMIO
No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.

KATHARINA
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears:
What, did he marry me to famish me?
Beggars, that come unto my father’s door,
Upon entreaty have a present aims;
If not, elsewhere they meet with charity:
But I, who never knew how to entreat,
Nor never needed that I should entreat,
Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,
With oath kept waking and with brawling fed:
And that which spites me more than all these wants,
He does it under name of perfect love;
As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,
‘Twere deadly sickness or else present death.
I prithee go and get me some repast;
I care not what, so it be wholesome food.

GRUMIO
What say you to a neat’s foot?

KATHARINA
‘Tis passing good: I prithee let me have it.

GRUMIO
I fear it is too choleric a meat.
How say you to a fat tripe finely broil’d?

KATHARINA
I like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me.

GRUMIO
I cannot tell; I fear ’tis choleric.
What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

KATHARINA
A dish that I do love to feed upon.

GRUMIO
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.

KATHARINA
Why then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.

GRUMIO
Nay then, I will not: you shall have the mustard,
Or else you get no beef of Grumio.

KATHARINA
Then both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.

GRUMIO
Why then, the mustard without the beef.

KATHARINA
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,

Beats him

That feed’st me with the very name of meat:
Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you,
That triumph thus upon my misery!
Go, get thee gone, I say.

Enter PETRUCHIO and HORTENSIO with meat

PETRUCHIO
How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?

HORTENSIO
Mistress, what cheer?

KATHARINA
Faith, as cold as can be.

PETRUCHIO
Pluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.
Here love; thou see’st how diligent I am
To dress thy meat myself and bring it thee:
I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.
What, not a word? Nay, then thou lovest it not;
And all my pains is sorted to no proof.
Here, take away this dish.

KATHARINA
I pray you, let it stand.

PETRUCHIO
The poorest service is repaid with thanks;
And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.

PETRUCHIO
[Aside] Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me.
Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!
Kate, eat apace: and now, my honey love,
Will we return unto thy father’s house
And revel it as bravely as the best,
With silken coats and caps and golden rings,
With ruffs and cuffs and fardingales and things;
With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery,
With amber bracelets, beads and all this knavery.
What, hast thou dined? The tailor stays thy leisure,
To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.

Enter Tailor

Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;
Lay forth the gown.

Enter Haberdasher

What news with you, sir?

Haberdasher
Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.

PETRUCHIO
Why, this was moulded on a porringer;
A velvet dish: fie, fie! ’tis lewd and filthy:
Why, ’tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap:
Away with it! come, let me have a bigger.

KATHARINA
I’ll have no bigger: this doth fit the time,
And gentlewomen wear such caps as these

PETRUCHIO
When you are gentle, you shall have one too,
And not till then.

HORTENSIO
[Aside] That will not be in haste.

KATHARINA
Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;
And speak I will; I am no child, no babe:
Your betters have endured me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart concealing it will break,
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

PETRUCHIO
Why, thou say’st true; it is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie:
I love thee well, in that thou likest it not.

KATHARINA
Love me or love me not, I like the cap;
And it I will have, or I will have none.

Exit Haberdasher

PETRUCHIO
Thy gown? why, ay: come, tailor, let us see’t.
O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?
What’s this? a sleeve? ’tis like a demi-cannon:
What, up and down, carved like an apple-tart?
Here’s snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber’s shop:
Why, what, i’ devil’s name, tailor, call’st thou this?

HORTENSIO
[Aside] I see she’s like to have neither cap nor gown.

Tailor
You bid me make it orderly and well,
According to the fashion and the time.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, and did; but if you be remember’d,
I did not bid you mar it to the time.
Go, hop me over every kennel home,
For you shall hop without my custom, sir:
I’ll none of it: hence! make your best of it.

KATHARINA
I never saw a better-fashion’d gown,
More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable:
Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.

Tailor
Your worship is deceived; the gown is made
Just as my master had direction:
Grumio gave order how it should be done.

GRUMIO
I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.

Tailor
But how did you desire it should be made?

GRUMIO
Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

Tailor
But did you not request to have it cut?

GRUMIO
Thou hast faced many things.

Tailor
I have.

GRUMIO
Face not me: thou hast braved many men; brave not
me; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto
thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I did
not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.

Tailor
Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify

PETRUCHIO
Read it.

GRUMIO
The note lies in’s throat, if he say I said so.

Tailor
[Reads] ‘Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown:’

GRUMIO
Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in
the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom
of brown thread: I said a gown.

PETRUCHIO
Proceed.

Tailor
[Reads] ‘With a small compassed cape:’

GRUMIO
I confess the cape.

Tailor
[Reads] ‘With a trunk sleeve:’

GRUMIO
I confess two sleeves.

Tailor
[Reads] ‘The sleeves curiously cut.’

PETRUCHIO
Ay, there’s the villany.

GRUMIO
Error i’ the bill, sir; error i’ the bill.
I commanded the sleeves should be cut out and
sewed up again; and that I’ll prove upon thee,
though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

Tailor
This is true that I say: an I had thee
in place where, thou shouldst know it.

GRUMIO
I am for thee straight: take thou the
bill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.

HORTENSIO
God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds.

PETRUCHIO
Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.

GRUMIO
You are i’ the right, sir: ’tis for my mistress.

PETRUCHIO
Go, take it up unto thy master’s use.

GRUMIO
Villain, not for thy life: take up my mistress’
gown for thy master’s use!

PETRUCHIO
Why, sir, what’s your conceit in that?

GRUMIO
O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:
Take up my mistress’ gown to his master’s use!
O, fie, fie, fie!

PETRUCHIO
[Aside] Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.
Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.

PETRUCHIO
Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father’s
Even in these honest mean habiliments:
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;
For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his fathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
O, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.
if thou account’st it shame. lay it on me;
And therefore frolic: we will hence forthwith,
To feast and sport us at thy father’s house.
Go, call my men, and let us straight to him;
And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot
Let’s see; I think ’tis now some seven o’clock,
And well we may come there by dinner-time.

PETRUCHIO
It shall be seven ere I go to horse:
Look, what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it. Sirs, let’t alone:
I will not go to-day; and ere I do,
It shall be what o’clock I say it is.

HORTENSIO
[Aside] Why, so this gallant will command the sun.

Exeunt

SCENE IV. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter TRANIO, and the Pedant dressed like VINCENTIO
TRANIO
Sir, this is the house: please it you that I call?

Pedant
Ay, what else? and but I be deceived
Signior Baptista may remember me,
Near twenty years ago, in Genoa,
Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.

TRANIO
‘Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,
With such austerity as ‘longeth to a father.

Pedant
I warrant you.

Enter BIONDELLO

But, sir, here comes your boy;
‘Twere good he were school’d.

TRANIO
Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,
Now do your duty throughly, I advise you:
Imagine ’twere the right Vincentio.

BIONDELLO
Tut, fear not me.

TRANIO
But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?

BIONDELLO
I told him that your father was at Venice,
And that you look’d for him this day in Padua.

Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of:
I pray you stand good father to me now,
Give me Bianca for my patrimony.

Pedant
Soft son!
Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua
To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio
Made me acquainted with a weighty cause
Of love between your daughter and himself:
And, for the good report I hear of you
And for the love he beareth to your daughter
And she to him, to stay him not too long,
I am content, in a good father’s care,
To have him match’d; and if you please to like
No worse than I, upon some agreement
Me shall you find ready and willing
With one consent to have her so bestow’d;
For curious I cannot be with you,
Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

BAPTISTA
Sir, pardon me in what I have to say:
Your plainness and your shortness please me well.
Right true it is, your son Lucentio here
Doth love my daughter and she loveth him,
Or both dissemble deeply their affections:
And therefore, if you say no more than this,
That like a father you will deal with him
And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,
The match is made, and all is done:
Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

TRANIO
I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best
We be affied and such assurance ta’en
As shall with either part’s agreement stand?

BAPTISTA
Not in my house, Lucentio; for, you know,
Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants:
Besides, old Gremio is hearkening still;
And happily we might be interrupted.

TRANIO
Then at my lodging, an it like you:
There doth my father lie; and there, this night,
We’ll pass the business privately and well.
Send for your daughter by your servant here:
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.
The worst is this, that, at so slender warning,
You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.

BAPTISTA
It likes me well. Biondello, hie you home,
And bid Bianca make her ready straight;
And, if you will, tell what hath happened,
Lucentio’s father is arrived in Padua,
And how she’s like to be Lucentio’s wife.

BIONDELLO
I pray the gods she may with all my heart!

TRANIO
Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.

Exit BIONDELLO

Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?
Welcome! one mess is like to be your cheer:
Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.

BAPTISTA
I follow you.

Exeunt TRANIO, Pedant, and BAPTISTA

Re-enter BIONDELLO

BIONDELLO
Cambio!

LUCENTIO
What sayest thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO
You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?

LUCENTIO
Biondello, what of that?

BIONDELLO
Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind, to
expound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.

LUCENTIO
I pray thee, moralize them.

BIONDELLO
Then thus. Baptista is safe, talking with the
deceiving father of a deceitful son.

LUCENTIO
And what of him?

BIONDELLO
His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.

LUCENTIO
And then?

BIONDELLO
The old priest of Saint Luke’s church is at your
command at all hours.

LUCENTIO
And what of all this?

BIONDELLO
I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a
counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her,
‘cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:’ to the
church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient
honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for,
I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell for
ever and a day.

LUCENTIO
Hearest thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO
I cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an
afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to
stuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir: and so, adieu,
sir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint
Luke’s, to bid the priest be ready to come against
you come with your appendix.

Exit

LUCENTIO
I may, and will, if she be so contented:
She will be pleased; then wherefore should I doubt?
Hap what hap may, I’ll roundly go about her:
It shall go hard if Cambio go without her.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father’s house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!

HORTENSIO
Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHARINA
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon.

KATHARINA
I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.

KATHARINA
Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.

PETRUCHIO
Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,
And not unluckily against the bias.
But, soft! company is coming here.

Enter VINCENTIO

To VINCENTIO

Good morrow, gentle mistress: where away?
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Such war of white and red within her cheeks!
What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty,
As those two eyes become that heavenly face?
Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake.

HORTENSIO
A’ will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.

KATHARINA
Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man, whom favourable stars
Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow!

PETRUCHIO
Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither’d,
And not a maiden, as thou say’st he is.

KATHARINA
Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green:
Now I perceive thou art a reverend father;
Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.

PETRUCHIO
Do, good old grandsire; and withal make known
Which way thou travellest: if along with us,
We shall be joyful of thy company.

VINCENTIO
Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,
That with your strange encounter much amazed me,
My name is call’d Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;
And bound I am to Padua; there to visit
A son of mine, which long I have not seen.

PETRUCHIO
What is his name?

VINCENTIO
Lucentio, gentle sir.

PETRUCHIO
Happily we met; the happier for thy son.
And now by law, as well as reverend age,
I may entitle thee my loving father:
The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,
Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,
Nor be grieved: she is of good esteem,
Her dowery wealthy, and of worthy birth;
Beside, so qualified as may beseem
The spouse of any noble gentleman.
Let me embrace with old Vincentio,
And wander we to see thy honest son,
Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.

VINCENTIO
But is it true? or else is it your pleasure,
Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest
Upon the company you overtake?

HORTENSIO
I do assure thee, father, so it is.

PETRUCHIO
Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;
For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.

Exeunt all but HORTENSIO

HORTENSIO
Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.
Have to my widow! and if she be froward,
Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.

Exit

Come back on 01/24/16 and join me for more fun with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew

LUCENTIO
Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir:
Have you so soon forgot the entertainment
Her sister Katharina welcomed you withal?

HORTENSIO
But, wrangling pedant, this is
The patroness of heavenly harmony:
Then give me leave to have prerogative;
And when in music we have spent an hour,
Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.

LUCENTIO
Preposterous ass, that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain’d!
Was it not to refresh the mind of man
After his studies or his usual pain?
Then give me leave to read philosophy,
And while I pause, serve in your harmony.

HORTENSIO
Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.

BIANCA
Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,
To strive for that which resteth in my choice:
I am no breeching scholar in the schools;
I’ll not be tied to hours nor ‘pointed times,
But learn my lessons as I please myself.
And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down:
Take you your instrument, play you the whiles;
His lecture will be done ere you have tuned.

LUCENTIO
Mistrust it not: for, sure, AEacides
Was Ajax, call’d so from his grandfather.

BIANCA
I must believe my master; else, I promise you,
I should be arguing still upon that doubt:
But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you:
Good masters, take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.

HORTENSIO
You may go walk, and give me leave a while:
My lessons make no music in three parts.

LUCENTIO
Are you so formal, sir? well, I must wait,

Aside

And watch withal; for, but I be deceived,
Our fine musician groweth amorous.

HORTENSIO
Madam, before you touch the instrument,
To learn the order of my fingering,
I must begin with rudiments of art;
To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,
More pleasant, pithy and effectual,
Than hath been taught by any of my trade:
And there it is in writing, fairly drawn.

BIANCA
Why, I am past my gamut long ago.

HORTENSIO
Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.

BIANCA
[Reads] ”Gamut’ I am, the ground of all accord,
‘A re,’ to Plead Hortensio’s passion;
‘B mi,’ Bianca, take him for thy lord,
‘C fa ut,’ that loves with all affection:
‘D sol re,’ one clef, two notes have I:
‘E la mi,’ show pity, or I die.’
Call you this gamut? tut, I like it not:
Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice,
To change true rules for old inventions.

Enter a Servant

Servant
Mistress, your father prays you leave your books
And help to dress your sister’s chamber up:
You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.

BIANCA
Farewell, sweet masters both; I must be gone.

Exeunt BIANCA and Servant

LUCENTIO
Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.

Exit

HORTENSIO
But I have cause to pry into this pedant:
Methinks he looks as though he were in love:
Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble
To cast thy wandering eyes on every stale,
Seize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,
Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing.

Exit

SCENE II. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO, KATHARINA, BIANCA, LUCENTIO, and others, attendants
BAPTISTA
[To TRANIO] Signior Lucentio, this is the
‘pointed day.
That Katharina and Petruchio should be married,
And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.
What will be said? what mockery will it be,
To want the bridegroom when the priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!
What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?

KATHARINA
No shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced
To give my hand opposed against my heart
Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen;
Who woo’d in haste and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior:
And, to be noted for a merry man,
He’ll woo a thousand, ‘point the day of marriage,
Make feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns;
Yet never means to wed where he hath woo’d.
Now must the world point at poor Katharina,
And say, ‘Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife,
If it would please him come and marry her!’

TRANIO
Patience, good Katharina, and Baptista too.
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word:
Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
Though he be merry, yet withal he’s honest.

KATHARINA
Would Katharina had never seen him though!

Exit weeping, followed by BIANCA and others

BAPTISTA
Go, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep;
For such an injury would vex a very saint,
Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.

Enter BIONDELLO

BIONDELLO
Master, master! news, old news, and such news as
you never heard of!

BAPTISTA
Is it new and old too? how may that be?

BIONDELLO
Why, is it not news, to hear of Petruchio’s coming?

BAPTISTA
Is he come?

BIONDELLO
Why, no, sir.

BAPTISTA
What then?

BIONDELLO
He is coming.

BAPTISTA
When will he be here?

BIONDELLO
When he stands where I am and sees you there.

TRANIO
But say, what to thine old news?

BIONDELLO
Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old
jerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned, a pair
of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled,
another laced, an old rusty sword ta’en out of the
town-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless;
with two broken points: his horse hipped with an
old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred;
besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose
in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected
with the fashions, full of wingdalls, sped with
spavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives,
stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the
bots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten;
near-legged before and with, a half-chequed bit
and a head-stall of sheeps leather which, being
restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been
often burst and now repaired with knots; one girth
six time pieced and a woman’s crupper of velure,
which hath two letters for her name fairly set down
in studs, and here and there pieced with packthread.

BAPTISTA
Who comes with him?

BIONDELLO
O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned
like the horse; with a linen stock on one leg and a
kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red
and blue list; an old hat and ‘the humour of forty
fancies’ pricked in’t for a feather: a monster, a
very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian
footboy or a gentleman’s lackey.

TRANIO
‘Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;
Yet oftentimes he goes but mean-apparell’d.

BAPTISTA
I am glad he’s come, howsoe’er he comes.

BIONDELLO
Why, sir, he comes not.

BAPTISTA
Didst thou not say he comes?

BIONDELLO
Who? that Petruchio came?

BAPTISTA
Ay, that Petruchio came.

BIONDELLO
No, sir, I say his horse comes, with him on his back.

BAPTISTA
Why, that’s all one.

BIONDELLO
Nay, by Saint Jamy,
I hold you a penny,
A horse and a man
Is more than one,
And yet not many.

Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO

PETRUCHIO
Come, where be these gallants? who’s at home?

BAPTISTA
You are welcome, sir.

PETRUCHIO
And yet I come not well.

BAPTISTA
And yet you halt not.

TRANIO
Not so well apparell’d
As I wish you were.

PETRUCHIO
Were it better, I should rush in thus.
But where is Kate? where is my lovely bride?
How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown:
And wherefore gaze this goodly company,
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet or unusual prodigy?

BAPTISTA
Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:
First were we sad, fearing you would not come;
Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.
Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,
An eye-sore to our solemn festival!

TRANIO
And tells us, what occasion of import
Hath all so long detain’d you from your wife,
And sent you hither so unlike yourself?

PETRUCHIO
Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:
Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,
Though in some part enforced to digress;
Which, at more leisure, I will so excuse
As you shall well be satisfied withal.
But where is Kate? I stay too long from her:
The morning wears, ’tis time we were at church.

TRANIO
See not your bride in these unreverent robes:
Go to my chamber; Put on clothes of mine.

PETRUCHIO
Not I, believe me: thus I’ll visit her.

BAPTISTA
But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.

PETRUCHIO
Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha’ done with words:
To me she’s married, not unto my clothes:
Could I repair what she will wear in me,
As I can change these poor accoutrements,
‘Twere well for Kate and better for myself.
But what a fool am I to chat with you,
When I should bid good morrow to my bride,
And seal the title with a lovely kiss!

Exeunt PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO

TRANIO
He hath some meaning in his mad attire:
We will persuade him, be it possible,
To put on better ere he go to church.

BAPTISTA
I’ll after him, and see the event of this.

Exeunt BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and attendants

TRANIO
But to her love concerneth us to add
Her father’s liking: which to bring to pass,
As I before unparted to your worship,
I am to get a man,–whate’er he be,
It skills not much. we’ll fit him to our turn,–
And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa;
And make assurance here in Padua
Of greater sums than I have promised.
So shall you quietly enjoy your hope,
And marry sweet Bianca with consent.

LUCENTIO
Were it not that my fellow-school-master
Doth watch Bianca’s steps so narrowly,
‘Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;
Which once perform’d, let all the world say no,
I’ll keep mine own, despite of all the world.

TRANIO
That by degrees we mean to look into,
And watch our vantage in this business:
We’ll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,
The narrow-prying father, Minola,
The quaint musician, amorous Licio;
All for my master’s sake, Lucentio.

Re-enter GREMIO

Signior Gremio, came you from the church?

GREMIO
As willingly as e’er I came from school.

TRANIO
And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?

GREMIO
A bridegroom say you? ’tis a groom indeed,
A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.

TRANIO
Curster than she? why, ’tis impossible.

GREMIO
Why he’s a devil, a devil, a very fiend.

TRANIO
Why, she’s a devil, a devil, the devil’s dam.

GREMIO
Tut, she’s a lamb, a dove, a fool to him!
I’ll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest
Should ask, if Katharina should be his wife,
‘Ay, by gogs-wouns,’ quoth he; and swore so loud,
That, all-amazed, the priest let fall the book;
And, as he stoop’d again to take it up,
The mad-brain’d bridegroom took him such a cuff
That down fell priest and book and book and priest:
‘Now take them up,’ quoth he, ‘if any list.’

TRANIO
What said the wench when he rose again?

GREMIO
Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp’d and swore,
As if the vicar meant to cozen him.
But after many ceremonies done,
He calls for wine: ‘A health!’ quoth he, as if
He had been aboard, carousing to his mates
After a storm; quaff’d off the muscadel
And threw the sops all in the sexton’s face;
Having no other reason
But that his beard grew thin and hungerly
And seem’d to ask him sops as he was drinking.
This done, he took the bride about the neck
And kiss’d her lips with such a clamorous smack
That at the parting all the church did echo:
And I seeing this came thence for very shame;
And after me, I know, the rout is coming.
Such a mad marriage never was before:
Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.

PETRUCHIO
Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:
I know you think to dine with me to-day,
And have prepared great store of wedding cheer;
But so it is, my haste doth call me hence,
And therefore here I mean to take my leave.

BAPTISTA
Is’t possible you will away to-night?

PETRUCHIO
I must away to-day, before night come:
Make it no wonder; if you knew my business,
You would entreat me rather go than stay.
And, honest company, I thank you all,
That have beheld me give away myself
To this most patient, sweet and virtuous wife:
Dine with my father, drink a health to me;
For I must hence; and farewell to you all.

TRANIO
Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.

PETRUCHIO
It may not be.

GREMIO
Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO
It cannot be.

KATHARINA
Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO
I am content.

KATHARINA
Are you content to stay?

PETRUCHIO
I am content you shall entreat me stay;
But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.

KATHARINA
Now, if you love me, stay.

PETRUCHIO
Grumio, my horse.

GRUMIO
Ay, sir, they be ready: the oats have eaten the horses.

KATHARINA
Nay, then,
Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day;
No, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.
The door is open, sir; there lies your way;
You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;
For me, I’ll not be gone till I please myself:
‘Tis like you’ll prove a jolly surly groom,
That take it on you at the first so roundly.

PETRUCHIO
O Kate, content thee; prithee, be not angry.

KATHARINA
I will be angry: what hast thou to do?
Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.

GREMIO
Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.

KATARINA
Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:
I see a woman may be made a fool,
If she had not a spirit to resist.

PETRUCHIO
They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.
Obey the bride, you that attend on her;
Go to the feast, revel and domineer,
Carouse full measure to her maidenhead,
Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves:
But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
I will be master of what is mine own:
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing;
And here she stands, touch her whoever dare;
I’ll bring mine action on the proudest he
That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,
Draw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves;
Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.
Fear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch
thee, Kate:
I’ll buckler thee against a million.

Exeunt PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, and GRUMIO

BAPTISTA
Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.

GREMIO
Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.

TRANIO
Of all mad matches never was the like.

LUCENTIO
Mistress, what’s your opinion of your sister?

BIANCA
That, being mad herself, she’s madly mated.

GREMIO
I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.

BAPTISTA
Neighbours and friends, though bride and
bridegroom wants
For to supply the places at the table,
You know there wants no junkets at the feast.
Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom’s place:
And let Bianca take her sister’s room.

TRANIO
Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?

BAPTISTA
She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let’s go.

Exeunt

Come back on 01/23/16 and join me for more fun with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew, ACT II, SCENE I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter KATHARINA and BIANCA

BIANCA
Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;
That I disdain: but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I’ll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.

BIANCA
Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.

KATHARINA
Minion, thou liest. Is’t not Hortensio?

BIANCA
If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I’ll plead for you myself, but you shall have
him.

KATHARINA
O then, belike, you fancy riches more:
You will have Gremio to keep you fair.

BIANCA
Is it for him you do envy me so?
Nay then you jest, and now I well perceive
You have but jested with me all this while:
I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.

KATHARINA
If that be jest, then all the rest was so.

Strikes her

Enter BAPTISTA

BAPTISTA
Why, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence?
Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.
Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.
For shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit,
Why dost thou wrong her that did ne’er wrong thee?
When did she cross thee with a bitter word?

KATHARINA
Her silence flouts me, and I’ll be revenged.

Flies after BIANCA

BAPTISTA
What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.

Exit BIANCA

KATHARINA
What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
She is your treasure, she must have a husband;
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding day
And for your love to her lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep
Till I can find occasion of revenge.

Exit

BAPTISTA
Was ever gentleman thus grieved as I?
But who comes here?

Enter GREMIO, LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man; PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO, with BIONDELLO bearing a lute and books

GREMIO
Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.

BAPTISTA
Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.
God save you, gentlemen!

PETRUCHIO
And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter
Call’d Katharina, fair and virtuous?

BAPTISTA
I have a daughter, sir, called Katharina.

GREMIO
You are too blunt: go to it orderly.

PETRUCHIO
You wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.
I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,
That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,
Her affability and bashful modesty,
Her wondrous qualities and mild behavior,
Am bold to show myself a forward guest
Within your house, to make mine eye the witness
Of that report which I so oft have heard.
And, for an entrance to my entertainment,
I do present you with a man of mine,

Presenting HORTENSIO

Cunning in music and the mathematics,
To instruct her fully in those sciences,
Whereof I know she is not ignorant:
Accept of him, or else you do me wrong:
His name is Licio, born in Mantua.

BAPTISTA
You’re welcome, sir; and he, for your good sake.
But for my daughter Katharina, this I know,
She is not for your turn, the more my grief.

PETRUCHIO
I see you do not mean to part with her,
Or else you like not of my company.

BAPTISTA
Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.
Whence are you, sir? what may I call your name?

PETRUCHIO
Petruchio is my name; Antonio’s son,
A man well known throughout all Italy.

GREMIO
I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your
wooing. Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am
sure of it. To express the like kindness, myself,
that have been more kindly beholding to you than
any, freely give unto you this young scholar,

Presenting LUCENTIO

that hath been long studying at Rheims; as cunning
in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other
in music and mathematics: his name is Cambio; pray,
accept his service.

BAPTISTA
A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.
Welcome, good Cambio.

To TRANIO

But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger:
may I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?

TRANIO
Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,
That, being a stranger in this city here,
Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,
Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.
Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me,
In the preferment of the eldest sister.
This liberty is all that I request,
That, upon knowledge of my parentage,
I may have welcome ‘mongst the rest that woo
And free access and favour as the rest:
And, toward the education of your daughters,
I here bestow a simple instrument,
And this small packet of Greek and Latin books:
If you accept them, then their worth is great.

BAPTISTA
Lucentio is your name; of whence, I pray?

TRANIO
Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.

BAPTISTA
A mighty man of Pisa; by report
I know him well: you are very welcome, sir,
Take you the lute, and you the set of books;
You shall go see your pupils presently.
Holla, within!

Enter a Servant

Sirrah, lead these gentlemen
To my daughters; and tell them both,
These are their tutors: bid them use them well.

Exit Servant, with LUCENTIO and HORTENSIO, BIONDELLO following

We will go walk a little in the orchard,
And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.

PETRUCHIO
Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have better’d rather than decreased:
Then tell me, if I get your daughter’s love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

BAPTISTA
After my death the one half of my lands,
And in possession twenty thousand crowns.

PETRUCHIO
And, for that dowry, I’ll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever:
Let specialties be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.

BAPTISTA
Ay, when the special thing is well obtain’d,
That is, her love; for that is all in all.

PETRUCHIO
Why, that is nothing: for I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:
So I to her and so she yields to me;
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.

BAPTISTA
Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!
But be thou arm’d for some unhappy words.

PETRUCHIO
Ay, to the proof; as mountains are for winds,
That shake not, though they blow perpetually.

Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke

BAPTISTA
How now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?

HORTENSIO
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

BAPTISTA
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?

HORTENSIO
I think she’ll sooner prove a soldier
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.

BAPTISTA
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?

HORTENSIO
Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bow’d her hand to teach her fingering;
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
‘Frets, call you these?’ quoth she; ‘I’ll fume
with them:’
And, with that word, she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute;
While she did call me rascal fiddler
And twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms,
As had she studied to misuse me so.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;
I love her ten times more than e’er I did:
O, how I long to have some chat with her!

BAPTISTA
Well, go with me and be not so discomfited:
Proceed in practise with my younger daughter;
She’s apt to learn and thankful for good turns.
Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,
Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?

PETRUCHIO
I pray you do.

Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO

I will attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail; why then I’ll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:
Say that she frown, I’ll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash’d with dew:
Say she be mute and will not speak a word;
Then I’ll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence:
If she do bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks,
As though she bid me stay by her a week:
If she deny to wed, I’ll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns and when be married.
But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.

Enter KATHARINA

Good morrow, Kate; for that’s your name, I hear.

KATHARINA
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katharina that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIO
You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

KATHARINA
Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence: I knew you at the first
You were a moveable.

PETRUCHIO
Why, what’s a moveable?

KATHARINA
A join’d-stool.

PETRUCHIO
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.

KATHARINA
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

PETRUCHIO
Women are made to bear, and so are you.

KATHARINA
No such jade as you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIO
Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;
For, knowing thee to be but young and light–

KATHARINA
Too light for such a swain as you to catch;
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIO
Should be! should–buzz!

KATHARINA
Well ta’en, and like a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
O slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?

KATHARINA
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry.

KATHARINA
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO
My remedy is then, to pluck it out.

KATHARINA
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,

PETRUCHIO
Who knows not where a wasp does
wear his sting? In his tail.

KATHARINA
So may you lose your arms:
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

PETRUCHIO
A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!

KATHARINA
What is your crest? a coxcomb?

PETRUCHIO
A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.

KATHARINA
No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.

KATHARINA
It is my fashion, when I see a crab.

PETRUCHIO
Why, here’s no crab; and therefore look not sour.

KATHARINA
There is, there is.

PETRUCHIO
Then show it me.

KATHARINA
Had I a glass, I would.

PETRUCHIO
What, you mean my face?

KATHARINA
Well aim’d of such a young one.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.

KATHARINA
Yet you are wither’d.

PETRUCHIO
‘Tis with cares.

KATHARINA
I care not.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.

KATHARINA
I chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.

PETRUCHIO
No, not a whit: I find you passing gentle.
‘Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar;
For thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers:
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,
But thou with mildness entertain’st thy wooers,
With gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender and as brown in hue
As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.
O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.

KATHARINA
Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command.

PETRUCHIO
Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;
And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!

KATHARINA
Where did you study all this goodly speech?

PETRUCHIO
It is extempore, from my mother-wit.

KATHARINA
A witty mother! witless else her son.

PETRUCHIO
Am I not wise?

KATHARINA
Yes; keep you warm.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed:
And therefore, setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife; your dowry ‘greed on;
And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;
For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,
Thy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,
Thou must be married to no man but me;
For I am he am born to tame you Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.
Here comes your father: never make denial;
I must and will have Katharina to my wife.

Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO

BAPTISTA
Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?

PETRUCHIO
How but well, sir? how but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.

BAPTISTA
Why, how now, daughter Katharina! in your dumps?

KATHARINA
Call you me daughter? now, I promise you
You have show’d a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half lunatic;
A mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.

PETRUCHIO
Father, ’tis thus: yourself and all the world,
That talk’d of her, have talk’d amiss of her:
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she’s not froward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity:
And to conclude, we have ‘greed so well together,
That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.

KATHARINA
I’ll see thee hang’d on Sunday first.

GREMIO
Hark, Petruchio; she says she’ll see thee
hang’d first.

TRANIO
Is this your speeding? nay, then, good night our part!

PETRUCHIO
Be patient, gentlemen; I choose her for myself:
If she and I be pleased, what’s that to you?
‘Tis bargain’d ‘twixt us twain, being alone,
That she shall still be curst in company.
I tell you, ’tis incredible to believe
How much she loves me: O, the kindest Kate!
She hung about my neck; and kiss on kiss
She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,
That in a twink she won me to her love.
O, you are novices! ’tis a world to see,
How tame, when men and women are alone,
A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.
Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice,
To buy apparel ‘gainst the wedding-day.
Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;
I will be sure my Katharina shall be fine.

BAPTISTA
I know not what to say: but give me your hands;
God send you joy, Petruchio! ’tis a match.

GREMIO TRANIO
Amen, say we: we will be witnesses.

PETRUCHIO
Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:
We will have rings and things and fine array;
And kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’Sunday.

Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA severally

GREMIO
Was ever match clapp’d up so suddenly?

BAPTISTA
Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant’s part,
And venture madly on a desperate mart.

TRANIO
‘Twas a commodity lay fretting by you:
‘Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.

BAPTISTA
The gain I seek is, quiet in the match.

GREMIO
No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.
But now, Baptists, to your younger daughter:
Now is the day we long have looked for:
I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.

TRANIO
And I am one that love Bianca more
Than words can witness, or your thoughts can guess.

BAPTISTA
Content you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife:
‘Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca’s love.
Say, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her?

GREMIO
First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold;
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss’d with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needlework,
Pewter and brass and all things that belong
To house or housekeeping: then, at my farm
I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,
Sixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls,
And all things answerable to this portion.
Myself am struck in years, I must confess;
And if I die to-morrow, this is hers,
If whilst I live she will be only mine.

TRANIO
That ‘only’ came well in. Sir, list to me:
I am my father’s heir and only son:
If I may have your daughter to my wife,
I’ll leave her houses three or four as good,
Within rich Pisa walls, as any one
Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;
Besides two thousand ducats by the year
Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.
What, have I pinch’d you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO
Two thousand ducats by the year of land!
My land amounts not to so much in all:
That she shall have; besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marseilles’ road.
What, have I choked you with an argosy?

TRANIO
Gremio, ’tis known my father hath no less
Than three great argosies; besides two galliases,
And twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her,
And twice as much, whate’er thou offer’st next.

GREMIO
Nay, I have offer’d all, I have no more;
And she can have no more than all I have:
If you like me, she shall have me and mine.

TRANIO
Why, then the maid is mine from all the world,
By your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied.

BAPTISTA
I must confess your offer is the best;
And, let your father make her the assurance,
She is your own; else, you must pardon me,
if you should die before him, where’s her dower?

TRANIO
That’s but a cavil: he is old, I young.

GREMIO
And may not young men die, as well as old?

BAPTISTA
Well, gentlemen,
I am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know
My daughter Katharina is to be married:
Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca
Be bride to you, if you this assurance;
If not, Signior Gremio:
And so, I take my leave, and thank you both.

GREMIO
Adieu, good neighbour.

Exit BAPTISTA

Now I fear thee not:
Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool
To give thee all, and in his waning age
Set foot under thy table: tut, a toy!
An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.

Exit

TRANIO
A vengeance on your crafty wither’d hide!
Yet I have faced it with a card of ten.
‘Tis in my head to do my master good:
I see no reason but supposed Lucentio
Must get a father, call’d ‘supposed Vincentio;’
And that’s a wonder: fathers commonly
Do get their children; but in this case of wooing,
A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.

Exit

Come back on 01/22/16 and join me for more fun with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew